Shostakovitch Symphony Nº 8

[cloughie]

Sadly, the 1960 London Mravinsky is totally ruined by the coughing audience. Shameful..

I think you overstate the problem there - for the most part the music making transcends the coughing. I think we've become too clinical in what we get from live recordings - back then we got what came from the recording. Nowadays the tinkering and touching up probably provides a better longer term product but we should be thankful for what has been captured from the past.

[Richard Barrett]

I had thought that the 8Th was a Protest against all Totalitarianism.

Well, actually it's a piece of instrumental music. Anything else is speculation!

[Bryn]

My introduction was the 1959 Gauk. It had the side break at the end of the second scherzo, so the attacca was lost and the flow seriously disrupted. However, the 'axe blows' of that second scherzo have never sounded so effective to me in any other performance I have encountered, and they are many.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think you overstate the problem there - for the most part the music making transcends the coughing..

I agree; the "extra percussion" is infuriating and persistently annoying (and, yes - "shameful"), but what Mravinsky and that breath-taking orchestra delivers from this score easily puts the performance amongst the very best of this work.

[BBMmk2]

That's the problem with downloading complete cycles of symphonies, sometimes.

Don't you guys know what I mean?